Both Microsoft and Google are making hardware, though for different reasons

[Windows Central]

Google is a Search company that has ventured into hardware. Microsoft is a software company that has done the same. Why?
Times change. For a company to remain relevant, it must change with the times. Approximately every ten years there is a technological paradigm shift. In the 90s, when information retrieval was critical to helping users navigate the wild west that was the web, Google rose to the position of search giant. Microsoft's software and productivity hey-day dominated the 80's and was the paradigm that brought personal computing to the masses.

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